CU-Boulder boosts girls' STEM opportunities

Bid to balance gender representation

Seventh-grader Hannah Cussen and her all-girl robotics team the "Banana Bots" took first place in a regional LEGO League competition with their custom robot designed to assist senior citizens.

In January, they'll head to a state championship -- a slot in the competition earned after they beat two dozen other teams. Hannah, who lives in Englewood, takes electives at her middle school that include "robotics engineering" and "industrial tech using Google SketchUp." When she grows up, she said, she wants to be a science adviser to the White House.

"For me, part of the allure is I want to go and beat all of the boys," Hannah said.

Hannah's early enthusiasm for science is inspiration for University of Colorado educators who are doggedly working to close the gender gap as few females are choosing to pursue fields in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM. Nationwide, there is a shortage of graduates in those fields, but only 18 percent of STEM graduates are women, according to the Society of Women Engineers.

CU, which has positioned itself as a national leader in STEM education, will be the host organization for the new statewide Colorado Collaborative for Girls in STEM, an organization focused on bettering girls' STEM education and career opportunities. CU is home to more than 45 STEM education programs, many of which are replicated nationally.

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The collaborative will hold a kick-off conference, "Take flight with the Colorado Girls Collaborative: Building opportunities for girls in STEM" on Wednesday in Denver at the St. Cajetan's Center on the Auraria campus.

Wednesday's event will gather more than 100 people dedicated to Colorado STEM initiatives, ranging from colleges to the Girl Scouts.

The collaborative recognizes that girls' interest in science can start in elementary school, and one of the main goals is to get K-12 counselors on board so they can share information about STEM opportunities with girls at an early age.

Stacey Forsyth, director of CU's Science Discovery and co-chairwoman for the Colorado Collaborative for Girls, said CU will house the project, but the collaborative activities are managed by a leadership team representing several organizations.

CU physics professor Noah Finkelstein said educators at the university are highly involved and interested in closing the gender gap in STEM. In some undergraduate science fields, like biology, the number of women and men pursuing degrees is close to even. In fields such as physics, that gap widens with fewer women pursuing degrees, Finkelstein said.

Physicists and social scientists at CU have teamed up to research what factors may be holding women back.

In 2010, Finkelstein co-authored a study that appeared in the journal Science and found by simply writing a self-affirming essay, female physics students can boost their course grades from the C to B range. The study found the gender gap in performance in physics courses stems from psychological factors, not ability.

Finkelstein said educators should focus on retaining STEM students, not just recruiting them.

"We can increase the population staying in STEM fields simply by creating a more inclusive and supportive environment," he said.

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